


And They Can Do Tricks!

by Ferrenbach



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Fun, Gen, Phase Four (Gorillaz), Silly, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 12:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferrenbach/pseuds/Ferrenbach
Summary: The house is infested with tentacles from an alternate dimension. They used to do tricks for candy, but are now getting aggressive and it's time something is done about them.





	And They Can Do Tricks!

“Noodle, baby girl, only light of my life, we need to talk about the tentacle situation.”

Noodle lowered her chopsticks and gave Russel a hard stare.

“I don’t appreciate these stereotypes,” she told him. “You see some tentacles in a haunted house and immediately go after the Japanese girl. It’s culturally insensitive and fetishistic to automatically assume I have anything to do with them.”

Russel sighed and begged the earth to swallow him whole.

“First of all, Noodle, you are eating ramen in a Pikachu onesie. Secondly,” he said, raising a finger before she could protest, “I know for a fact you are feeding the damned things candy to teach them tricks. Last week they stole my gum and slapped my ass ‘cause it was sugar-free.”

“Why the Hell are you chewing sugar-free gum?”

“Because I can brush my teeth after dessert, but not while I’m chewing my damned gum.”

Russel paused to consider this.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, why the Hell would tentacles chew gum? _How_ would tentacles chew gum?”

Noodle raised her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug with a wordless noise resembling “I dunno” to indicate her complete cluelessness and rammed a wad of ramen into her mouth.

“Aight, that’s not the point,” Russel said, waving the thought away. “The point is the damned things are getting out of control. I got nothing that stops them or wards them off. The salt water thing just annoys them. It used to drive them back long enough to sulk for a while, but now they just come out in some other part of the house like the world’s biggest fuck you.”

“We could always lock up the cubbies,” Noodle suggested once she’d swallowed her mouthful. “I mean, they still come in through the odd hole in the plaster sometimes, but if the main routes are blocked that might chill them a bit.”

“Yeah, great, except they’re using the plumbing now. 2-D’s been scared to shower since they came out of the drain when he was half-hungover.”

“That explains why he was trying to sponge bathe in the kitchen.” Noodle pursed her lips in thought. “Are you sure they’re the same ones? I knew they came out of various thin spaces in the walls, but I’ve never seen them in the plumbing.”

“Long, thin, smooth, about as thick around as a broom handle?” Russel said. “Look sort of rubbery? Bluish-purplish-grey?”

“Damn,” Noodle huffed. “That sounds like them. And you’ve got nothing in your arsenal that bothers them at all?”

“Not for any real length of time,” Russel confirmed. “I made a toilet bomb that seems to put them off for a few days, but it doesn’t work in places like the sink.”

“Damn.”

Noodle ate some more noodles, mouth quirked in serious thought.

“The problem is,” she said, pausing to drink some of her broth. “The problem is, I can’t exactly talk to them. They don’t speak English, or Japanese, or any other language that I’m aware of, and I’m aware of a lot. Except, apparently, Tentaclese. Who knew?”

She offered another exaggerated shrug.

“I’m not even sure how I got them started with the party tricks. I was eating candy one day and these things came out of the walls and tried to snatch it, so I tightened my grip and flipped them off and they – kinda-sorta – imitated the gesture. So I gave them one candy and repeated the gesture, which they copied again, only better. So I gave them more candy. I show them things and they do them. They can reasonably imitate most gestures and some kinds of simple line art.”

It was a far more sensable explanation than Russel had come up with on his own. He had started to believe telepathy was involved. One could never tell with Noodle.

“I accept that,” he said. “How’d you get them to go after Murdoc specifically?”

“Ehhhh… I showed them a picture of Murdoc and flipped it off, then threw an economy sized bag of Jelly Babies at them,” Noodle said. “They seem to like Jelly Babies the best. Even then, it only lasts a couple of weeks. They get bored. Or just want more Jelly Babies,” she allowed.

“Any idea where they come from?”

Noodle shrugged a third time and uttered another wordless noise of bewilderment.

“I never asked,” she said. “I thought they lived in some kind of in-between dimension, you know? Like the house, but not the house. Same place, different space.”

“Any idea what kind of creature they belong to?”

Noodle blanched.

“I– No. Fuck. You’d think I’d think of something like that. I mean, they don’t seem to be individual worm entities or anything, so they must be attached to something.”

“Aight, well, we’ve got to think of something before 2-D stops using the toilets as well,” Russel said. “He’s managed to come across them stone cold sober and carrying a weapon so far, but it’s only a matter of time before they get him in a vulnerable position.”

“I can think of a round dozen people right now who’d pay good money for video footage of that.”

Noodle paused, as if only just aware she had spoken out loud, and rammed another wad of ramen in her mouth while staring down Russel as if daring him to comment.

Russel eyed her sceptically.

“You can, can you?”

“I shpend a wot of time on showful media,” Noodle mumbled, mouth full. She swallowed. “You know. Fan stuff. I troll them undercover. Tentacles are kind of a popular… thing.”

“How much money?”

“A lot of money. And a shit-ton more to do it themselves.”

Russel and Noodle shared a good, long look that put telepathy back on the table.

“Good thing we’re not Murdoc, right?” Russel said eventually.

“Yeah. Good thing,” Noodle replied in a far-away voice, her eyes glassy with possibility.

“Dial it back, Noodle.”

“I’m good. I’m good,” Noodle insisted, prodding at her ramen. “Also open to suggestions.”

“Do they eat anything other than candy?”

“Well… they do, I suppose, but it has to have sugar. I like to use candies because it’s better distribution, you know? Keeps them all busy at once.”

Russel pondered this a few minutes.

“What if we started tainting the candy?” he suggested. “I’m not talking poison or anything ‘cause that might just piss ‘em off, but if all the candy started tasting kind of… off, do you think it would drive them away?”

“I’m not sure,” Noodle admitted. “I don’t know how smart they are. If _all_ the candy started going bad, they might be suspicious. I’d say leave a few types – like Jelly Babies – clean for bribery and make everything else disgusting. Spray everything with mint or something. They hate mint.”

“Maybe mix it up a bit,” Russel mused. “If it’s all mint, that’s a dead giveaway. Maybe coat some stuff in cayenne pepper. Get some of that salted liquorice or something. Wouldn’t even have to change the taste of that.”

“I could use that to feed them, but the rest of you will have to start carrying bad snacks around in case they try to pick your pockets.”

Russel nodded.

“Good thinking. That’ll work as long as 2-D doesn’t forget and cram of wad of something in his mouth.”

“That might actually be better,” Noodle said. “It’s a bit mean, but if he’s startled by how bad candy tastes, the whole thing will be more believable.”

“Sounds good,” Russel said. “I’m going out later. Get me a list of what you think will work and I’ll pick up our ammunition while I’m out.”

“I’ll let 2-D and Murdoc know when I see them,” Noodle agreed, slurping up the last of her ramen.

 

 

“I dun like this.”

“You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.”

“They dun like me an’ they’ll eat me.”

“They’re not going to eat you.”

“If they think I’m gonna give ‘em candy an’ I give ‘em this rubbish, they’ll eat me.”

“They don’t even have mouths, D. How’re they gonna eat you?”

“They got a face somewhere. They must if they eat candy. They’ll pull me in the dark an’ eat me.”

“Just pretend you’re in a horror movie. You like those.”

Even without visible eyeballs, 2-D’s reproachful glare was so strong that Russel nearly shied away from it.

“Horror movies are fun ‘cause they’re not _real_ ,” 2-D sniffed. “If you want ‘em to eat liquorice, you do it.”

“I already fed them those eucalyptus mint humbug things,” Russel reminded him. “If it’s always the same people doing it, they’re gonna get suspicious.”

“They’ll spit ‘em at me.”

“At least yours are soft.”

2-D glared at Russel a while longer, then sulkily grabbed the bag of liquorice from him and stomped into the house.

Russel hung back a while, not wanting to follow too closely lest his interest tip off their mark. He jumped at the sound of a sharp yelp, followed swiftly by an angry cry of “Blimey! Dun you get spicy with me you manky bastards!” and a number of loud bangs. He rushed in to find 2-D standing in the hallway with one shoe in his hand, disheveled and shirt torn, his skin marked with a number of fresh red welts. Little black lumps peppered the floor.

“I think I won,” 2-D snarked. “I’mma change my shirt.”

He turned on his heel and clomp-stepped off to his room. A moment later, Noodle entered the hallway.

“What happened to 2-D?” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. She then noticed the salted liquorice covering the floor and nodded knowingly.

“I don’t blame you!” she called loudly into a cubby, and then, to Russel, in a lower voice added, “I try to be sympathetic so it all seems like an unfortunate accident.”

Russel signalled for Noodle to follow him and led her out of the house.

“This ain’t working,” he told her. “The tentacles are just getting mean. They buried the humbugs in the wall like shotgun pellets and went after 2-D for the liquorice.”

“They come into my room at night,” Noodle said, which explained the dark circles slowly forming under her eyes. “They bang on things. It’s really bad. I’m sorry I ever fed them anything.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Russel assured her while simultaneously wondering what sane individual attempted to communicate with tentacles coming out of the wall. “We need to come up with an alternate plan before something else happens.”

At that moment, as if summoned from the pit, Murdoc pulled up to the house.

“Colloquium on the front lawn?” he said, oiling his way up to them. “I hope there’s a seminar on purchasing shoes,” he added, eying Noodle’s bare feet. “Apt to get tetanus out here.”

“You can go to Hell,” Noodle told him.

“Too soon, just got back,” Murdoc countered smoothly. “Have either of you, perchance, happened upon my singer? Or is he the subject of our little gathering?”

“No,” Russel said. And, “He’s brooding. Probably in his room.”

“Good, good,” Murdoc nodded, fishing out a cigarette and lighting it. “The room part. Not so much the brooding. Ah, well. I’ve just the thing to cheer him up.”

Murdoc walked up the front steps, threw open the door like a king entering his kingdom, and shouted, “Oi! Dents! I brought you some Jelly Ba—”

A masse of tentacles erupted from the front closet, grabbed Murdoc, and hauled him inside.

“That didn’t look good,” Russel said.

 

 

 

“Aight,” Russel said, pouring out shots of whiskey. “It’s been almost three hours. We’ve checked every closet, drawer, vent, drain, and hole in the wall in this place with absolutely no sign of Murdoc. As far as we know, the tentacles have him and have no intention of giving him back. Any ideas?”

“We… uh… we could go after him?” 2-D ventured.

“That’s one option,” Russel agreed. “Do any of us know how to open a doorway to the sub-dimension of this house?”

2-D blinked at him owlishly and downed his shot, holding it out for a refill.

“That is literally the only thing I _don’t_ know how to do.” Noodle emptied her glass and held it out as well. “We could always just leave him there.”

“That’s another option,” Russel said, having finished his shot and already pouring out some more. “So… Do any of us know how to play bass?”

2-D and Noodle both raised their hands.

“She’s prob’ly better’n me,” 2-D offered.

“Well, that’s settled then,” Russel said, raising his glass. “To Murdoc. Rest in peace, you bastard.”

 

 

 

Three days later, the hall closet burst open with a bang.

“Rejoice! Your saviour is come!” Murdoc bellowed sauntering out to an audience of three, looking dishevelled, but no worse for wear. “I need the loo and two bottles of single malt and I need them yesterday! Dents, gimme a fag.”

2-D wordlessly pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it, and passed it over.

“We thought you were gone _forever_ ,” he said, his voice tinged with awe. “We couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“I’m sure you looked a long fucking time,” Murdoc sniffed, taking a drag. “but I have returned and saved your snivelling hides from the beast in the walls. Bow to your god!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Russel said. “Seriously though, how did you get out? Aren’t those things in another damned dimension?”

Murdoc snorted.

“If that’s how it’s going to be, you can keep wondering. Just know that they have found fairer fields to plow and you are but ants before my majesty. Also remember,” he added with an evil grin, “that I can call ‘em all back. 2-D! Get the cameras! Is our video editing software up to date?”

“I… think so?” 2-D said, looking nervous. “Why d’you need all that?”

“Don’t worry about it, just follow,” Murdoc ordered and sashayed off down the corridor, dragging a slightly panicked 2-D in his wake.

“I need to know what he did, but I’m scared to find out,” Russel said as Noodle punched him in the arm until she had his attention. Then she shoved her phone in his face.

Russel silently read the headline: _Maynards Bassets Factory Quarrantine in Wake of Giant Worm Infestation_.

“Looks like a nice day for a long walk in the park,” he said, “away from this house and everything in it."

Noodle nodded wordlessly, grabbed a pair of shoes, and followed him out the door.


End file.
